


do not go gentle

by portraitofemmy



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Dom/sub Undertones, Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Not s04e13 No Better To Be Safe Than Sorry Compliant, Quentin Coldwater is a sub, Quentin Doesn't Die, Quentin and Alice Talk And Break Up, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 19:57:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18698146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofemmy/pseuds/portraitofemmy
Summary: Quentin Coldwater doesn’t die alone, trapped in a world between mirrors.He doesn’t watch all of the people he loves mourn him and thinkmy life is done. He doesn’t give up, or give in, or waste away.But he dreams he does.





	do not go gentle

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my answer to the s4 finale, because I refuse to accept what was given. That said, it deals very heavily with depression, and is set in the POV of a depressed character. Please proceed with caution and take steps to protect your mental health, if this is likely to trigger you. Please remember, Quentin deserves to live a long life, and so do you.
> 
> Thanks as always to [saltandpepperbox](https://saltandpepperbox.tumblr.com/) for the endless cheerleading and beta work. This started as a ‘quick fix-it fic’ and bloomed into a meditation on loving someone enough to live for them. It was cathartic to write, and I hope it’s as soothing for you to read.

_“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  
– Dylan Thomas_

Quentin Coldwater doesn’t die alone, trapped in a world between mirrors.

He doesn’t watch all of the people he loves mourn him and think _my life is done_. He doesn’t give up, or give in, or waste away.

But he dreams he does.

__

Eliot– the Monster? – _Eliot_ falls at Quentin’s feet, a red bloom of blood left behind by Margo’s axe spreading sickeningly into the material of his t-shirt. He’s as pale and red-eyed as he’s been the whole time the Monster’s been wearing his skin, and Quentin can’t look away.

The magic, _the Monster_ , that rises out of Eliot’s chest smells like blood and ozone and the cracked-open bone smell of a broken god. It makes Quentin’s skin crawl to see it, and when Penny releases him and steps away, his knees give out. He drops to the soft loam of the forest floor, crawling helpless, heedless, towards Eliot’s body. Margo’s kneeling too, yelling at Eliot and swearing at him, as blood blooms and blooms and _blooms_ , leaking out of him. God, how could a person contain so much _wet?_

But he’s seen this before, hasn’t he? Not just death and blood, because gods and men know that Quentin Coldwater has seen more blood and death in the last two years of his life that he was ever prepared for. No, he’s seen _this before._ Eliot, gone still and silent and cold.

First in the probability coins, years ago, as they scrambled to find a way to escape The Beast. Then again in the time loop in the bank vault, when Eliot had pushed himself in front Quentin only catch a vicious slash of battle magic and bleed out on the floor. And of course, heart failure on the mosaic, at the ripe old age of 77, peaceful after a good long life. Now it was an axe to the torso, infinitely worse than all of those because it’s happening in front of Quentin’s eyes.

Under his hands.

“ _Eliot,_ ” he all but moans, his voice pleading, and in that way sometimes that certain phrases trigger Mosaic memories, he hears himself speaking in stereo. That Eliot hadn’t responded either. 

“– you selfish fuck. Get back here!” Margo’s shouting next to him, and a small part of the deep dark emptiness inside him wants to comfort her, because he’s never been able to handle seeing un-fucking-breakable Margo cry. But he can’t stop his hands gripping Eliot’s shoulder, even as his fingers go numb with the strain.

“Quentin, we have to go,” Alice calls, somewhere behind him, and Quentin’s about to turn his back and his heart and his hope on this when Eliot’s eyes flutter a little. 

“Well, when you put it so sweetly, Bambi,” He wheezes, and he sounds wrecked, pained, broken, _but he sounds like Eliot._

“How many times,” Quentin chokes, and feels it scrape the inside of this throat like broken glass, “do I have to watch you _die?”_

Eliot’s eyes, fucking lovely hazel eyes still bloodshot and red rimmed from the monster, flick up to him. Oh, his eyes, his _eyes._ “I’m sorry,” Eliot chokes out, and he’s gurgling up blood, jesus, oh _Jesus._ “Q–”

“Just fucking. Shut up, okay.” 

“No, Q–” And Eliot’s reaching for him, even though he’s _bleeding to death_ on the forest floor. “I need to tell you–”

“You need to lie still, you absolute dumbfuck,” Margo cuts in, but Eliot’s still reaching for him. Quentin takes his hand, which is _cold_ in his and weak, and Quentin’s stomach turns. 

He leans in anyway, drawn to him. He’s been caught in Eliot’s gravitation pull since that first moment, when Eliot had lain stretched out in the sun like something out of a wet dream and opened Q’s eyes to a world of literal magic. “I need to go, El, what is it?”

He’s expecting something about the Monster, maybe, some snare in their plan they can’t see because it wasn’t inside their heads. But, no–

“I love you, Q,” Eliot wheezes out, “You ne– need to know that.”

_Oh._

There’s a spark inside him, a throb of pain through the numbness. Like that bright flare of Julia’s magic, inexplicable but undeniable. A flash like hope in the darkness. 

“We need to go _now,_ ” Penny says, somewhere behind him, but Eliot’s eyes are rolling back in his head.

“Don’t you _dare,_ ” Margo hisses, and her hands are moving in a tut Quentin doesn’t know over Eliot’s body. The greyness of the universe is closing in on him, but Quentin can’t make himself stand. He tries, halfheartedly, but his legs feel like they’re made of lead. A soft pained sound escapes Eliot’s chest, and Quentin feels it in his.

“Stay with me,” he whispers, reaching up to smooth back Eliot’s hair, heedless of the blood on his hands. The hair under his fingers is monster-long and messy, but still familiar, so familiar. Quentin can feel it in his bones, the way his body knows this body. “You don’t get to die on me again.”

Whatever Margo’s doing must be working, because the steady leak of blood seems to have slowed somewhat. Eliot’s breathing is still shallow, but when Quentin presses his fingers against the front of Eliot’s throat, he can feel the steady flutter of his pulse. Weak, but present. 

Reassured, Quentin braces to gather up and go with the knowledge that Eliot’s alive, that soft whisper of _I love you, Q_ tucked like fragile silk in his empty heart. But when he looks up, Penny and Alice are nowhere in sight. Only Margo, blood soaked up to her elbows and tears leaking out of her one good eye.

“They’re gone?” he asks, and she just nods, collapsing to sit with her legs fold to the side. It brings her closer to him, and now he wraps his arm around her, the only comfort he has to offer. “What do we do now?”

“Wait? I don’t fucking know,” Margo sighs, and reaches out to where Q’s still holding Eliot’s hand, covering his fingers with hers. _She gets it,_ Quentin realizes, and it’s a dizzying moment of kinship, like a pressure valve releasing in his chest. _She’s the only one who understands._ Life without Eliot just wasn’t life worth living. 

So they wait, Eliot’s blood going tacky on their skin as it dries. They don’t speak, and the forest is oddly silent around them. Like the whole universe is holding its breath, waiting, waiting, _waiting._

The rush of magic comes first. It’s like a wave of ecstasy hitting, rolling over Quentin’s skin, like the first rush of air-opium stepping into Fillory. _Magic,_ wild and free, spilling into every corner of creation, bright, blinding, burning his numb limbs. 

Margo’s delighted laugh almost makes him jump, and she’s scramble to sit up, hands already forming what he can only assume is a more powerful healing spell over Eliot’s body. He’s kneeling forward to help when there’s the crack of a branch behind them, and he whips around.

But it’s only Alice and Penny, fucked up and disheveled but alive, leaning on each other for support. “It’s done,” Alice says, and Quentin.

He’s pretty sure he should feel happy. Or relieved. Or proud.

He doesn’t feel much at all.

__

The sliding-through-the-world feeling of traveling has become familiar by now, but it's notably harder to land with Eliot propped up, barely conscious, between Quentin and Margo. Quentin staggers, a little, under the weight of him as they blip into existence in the Manhattan penthouse.

“Where are we?” Eliot asks, squinting around at the gaudy ridiculousness which is their new clubhouse. And fuck, that’s so weird, but that’s right. Eliot doesn’t _know,_ he wasn’t _here._

“It’s a really long story,” Margo says, from the otherside of Eliot’s weak body. “A place with beds. Let’s get you horizontal.”

It’s a mark of how utterly shitty Eliot must be feeling that he has no innuendo to return for that. 

“See if you can get Lipson and bring her here,” Quentin suggest to Penny, and totally tunes out whatever bitchy comment he gets in response. Penny goes, and that’s the important thing. 

Together, he and Margo help Eliot hobble over into the only bedroom on the bottom floor of the penthouse. Eliot’s white as a sheet, fists clenched in pain, by the time they get him deposited onto the bed. And _fuck_ , he’s still covered in blood, and wearing The Monster’s clothes. 

“Do we have some other clothes for him?” Quentin asks Margo, guiding Eliot to sit forward so Quentin can start carefully work off one arm of his black cardigan, then the other. 

“I’ll find something,” she says, and then it’s just them, Eliot on the bed, Quentin crouching next to him.

Or so he thinks. Movement in his perphary startles him, and he flinches on instinct, expecting the Monster, but, no. The monster’s gone, and it’s just Alice, holding out a bowl full of water and a washcloth. “Thanks,” he mutters, and takes it from her. 

It’s the best Eliot can do to go where Q guides him and stay conscious, as Quentin begins the process of cleaning him up. Getting his blood soaked shirt off of him is an ordeal, trying to get it over his head without moving his arms too much, but eventually comes away and lands on the floor with a wet slap. Quentin can read the pain on his face from having to move even that much. The wound on his stomach, which looked hours old instead of minutes thanks to Margo and her clever hands, begins to ooze slightly. Quentin carefully, tenderly, sets out to wipe all the blood away. 

Touching Eliot like this, caring for him, feels like instinct. Moving his body gently, with the utmost attention given to favoring the broken places, and sliding the cloth over his skin is as natural as breathing. It’s not erotic, how could it be when El’s blanched white with pain, but it’s so fucking intimate. The void in Quentin’s chest feels raw at the edges, painful, and he feels tears spring to his eyes as he wipes the blood from Eliot’s neck.

“Q,” Eliot breathes out, barely a whisper, and he’s trying to reach up for him, fingers brushing against Quentin’s cheeks.

“You need to be still, sweetheart,” Quentin tells him, and the word rolls off his tongue like it would have in another lifetime. He catches Eliot’s hand, squeezing it gently, before tucking it back against his side. In another lifetime, there wasn’t a single part of Eliot’s body that he didn’t know, hadn’t cared for, hadn’t held through sickness and health. 

Quentin can feel Alice’s eyes boring into him the entire time. 

She turns away, finally, when Quentin moves to help Eliot out of the Monster’s pants. He can hear the click of her heels as she walks back into the living room, that fast-paced _tick-tick-tick-tick_ that means she’s angry. He swallows, and ignores it. Focuses on helping Eliot. Margo comes back just in time, and she helps him get Eliot dressed again, in soft pajama pants and a loose henley. She must have raided Penny’s closet, and Quentin might be amused by that if he could feel anything besides exhaustion. 

Eliot passes out from the pain partway through the process of getting his shirt on, but he’s not bleeding and his heart’s steady, so they just get him tucked back into the pillows. There was no point putting blankets on him, not when hopefully Lipson would be arriving soon to actually _fix_ this.

“I need to–” Quentin starts, makes half an aborted gesture towards where Alice had disappeared into the living room. But he can’t stop looking at Eliot’s face. Eliot’s face, not the Monster’s, _Eliot_ , he’ll be Eliot again when he opens his eyes.

_I need to be here when he does,_ Quentin thinks wildly, desperately, hears _I love you, Q_ in memory folded safe in heart. 

“Go,” Margo says, eyes far too knowing. “I’ll call you if he wakes up.”

Alice is sitting on the couch in the living room when he walks out, shoulders back and head held high, eyes straight forward, and he can practically feel the tension in her jaw from here. Quentin flexes his hands absently at his sides, feels magic swirl in the air around him. Magic that exists again because of her. Magic they nearly lost forever because of her. 

Swallowing, pushing his nerves down into the emptiness inside him, he steps towards her.   
Alice’s eyes flick towards him, and then away again. “It’s always going to be him, isn’t it?”

Quentin feels. Tired. 

He feels tired, and empty, like a shell, like someone reached inside him and scooped out his personality and left it in a dumpster somewhere. He looks at Alice, and sees three echos overlayed. At one time she’s the vengeful spirit screaming in his mind, and the angry lost woman yelling at him that he stole her agency and she’s... Vix. She’s his Vix. And she’s the ghost that haunted him. She’s all of those things. She never stopped being all of those things.

Just like the Monster never stopped having Eliot’s face and eyes. 

_I’m so fucking tired,_ he wants to say, and doesn’t. Doesn’t put that on her. He hasn’t put that on anyone, in a long time. 

Instead, he walks over to take a seat next to her. “I wasn’t lying to you when I said I want you in my life,” he says carefully, because lord knows he doesn’t want to hurt her more than he already has. He’s not sure he’ll be able to avoid it but. He can try. “But... Alice, I loved him for an entire lifetime.”

“A lifetime you both barely remember,” she points out, and her voice is trembling. 

Somewhere in the vast emptiness that is him, Quentin feels a twinge of pain. He looks down at his hands, clasped between his knees. Knows, viscerally, what his hands will look like in 50 years. “I remember it.”

“But you didn't live it,” she says desperately, and when he looks up at her, there are tears gathering in her eyes. “Quentin, that’s not _you._ ”

He laughs, ripped raw, _ripped apart_. “Maybe,” he agrees, and it hurts as much as it had in the throne room at the palace. “But I still love him.”

“Oh.”

“In Fillory, before... It wasn’t just me and him. He never needed it to be just me and him, if you–”

“If you just want to complete the set, why don’t you go ask _Margo_ ,” Alice hisses, and the tears spill over, streaming down her cheeks. Quentin feels like she’s slapped him, like she had years ago, and his jaw snaps shut. “Why did you even– At Brakebills South, why let me think–?” 

He doesn’t have a good answer for her, besides that he’s felt _empty_ for _so long_ , and the way she looked at him made him remember what it felt like to feel... hopeful. To believe magic could solve all their problems. “I wanted to feel the way I did the first time,” He says, and maybe it’s cruel, but it’s also honest. And he thinks Alice, of anyone in the whole world, is the one person who can take his cruel honesty. 

He’s not surprised when she nods, and her shoulders sag a little. She’s still holding herself with that prim presence, posture impeccable, but she unspools ever so slightly. “Yeah, I think I understand that. Things were simpler.”

“Simpler as foxes,” he says quietly, and it’s a risk, maybe, to shine a light on it, to point out that the only time they really worked was when they weren’t _them_. Not the complicated, fucked up, intractable human versions of themselves. 

But it’s a risk that pays off, because she laughs once, short and weak and wet and pained, but it’s something. “Much simpler as foxes.”

Silence stretches between them, long and heavy and weighed down with... all of the shit between them, so much baggage it could fill a caravan. But she’s still Alice, and he’s tried to close the book on this once before and it didn’t work. She’s too much a part of him. “Can we be friends?” He asks, softly. “Like. Really be friends. I’m not sure if we were, before the... trials and the sex and the end of the world. But I think I’d like to try that.”

“You’re asking me to watch you love someone else,” She points out, voice going pointed, biting again. “How is that fair, Quentin?”

“I did it with Julia,” he says, honestly, because there is _nothing left inside him_ to hide behind. “It sucked and then I got over it. And I wouldn’t give up that friendship for the world.”

There’s a breath, where he thinks she’s either going to curse him out or literally _curse him_. Then she swallows and looks down at her knees, blinks out another wave of tears, then lifts her head up to meet his eyes. Steady. Stubborn. Intractable. “It’s going to take time,” she says, matter-of-factly. “I don’t think I can be here, now. But we can try.”

Which, really, is fair enough. “Okay,” he agrees. Alice nods, smoothing her hands down her skirt to give her something to do, and –

And he’s saved from having to figure out how to end this conversation by Penny popping back into existence with Lipson in toe. 

By the time they get her set up next to Eliot, Alice is gone.

The rest of the day passes in a blur as the remaining members of their little cluster filter in and out of the apartment. Everyone’s been too invested for too long in getting The Monster out of Eliot to not at least come by and see the results. 

Quentin stays near by, as best he can, as people filter in and out. Something deep in his gut wants to stay glued to Eliot’s side, in the room at least if not in the bed with him. But Quentin can tell Eliot’s getting overwhelmed, and Margo doesn’t seem inclined to leave his side either, so Quentin lets her have this. Eliot, after all, was hers first.

Julia bullies him into taking a shower, in the way only she and El have ever managed to do, gentle but firm in the knowledge that left to his own devices he’d never manage it. They were the only two people in his life who ever seemed to understand the practical downside of the messiness in his brain. He stands under the scalding hot spray of water and wills himself to feels _something,_ something like elation or relief or happiness. 

He maybe feels fear, at having Eliot out of his line of sight for this long, but he’s not actually sure that’s an improvement. Might be swapping out one kind of broken for another. 

Julia’s in Eliot’s room when he immerges, hair still wet, having swapped out his bloodsoaked hoodie and pants for a button up and jeans. They’re visible through the doorway from the living room, just, and he catches sight of them before they see him. Standing there, he can’t help but watch them speak with mild fascination, these two chapters of his life who have rarely ever interacted. Julia, for as much as she’s been his stalwart companion the past couple months, will always feel irrevocably tied to his past. In Eliot, well. There was a future, there. Once.

Whatever Julia’s saying, Eliot’s watching her seriously, dark brows drawn down. Rarely does Eliot look this concentrated on something, and Quentin’s curiosity peaks. But when he steps close enough for them to notice him, Julia’s apologizing for not being able to heal him.

“I suppose we can’t rely on God powers forever, Hedge Bitch,” Eliot’s saying, shooting for lightness and missing a little, but his smile is genuine. Quentin can tell, even if he’s not sure Julia can. And then more seriously, “Thank you.”

Then his eyes flick over to Quentin, warm hazel and smile-lined, and Quentin. He feels weak with how much he wants to crawl into Eliot’s side and curl up there. He might even be able to do it, after Lipson and her healing. Eliot would be in pain and weak for a couple of days, but the injury was almost entirely gone.

But then Josh and Margo tumble back into the room from the on-suite bathroom, a bunch of hair products in hand, and the tenderness of the moment shatters around them like so much broken glass. Julia squeezes Eliot’s forearm and stands, coming over to loop her arm with Quentin’s. “Let’s go get food for everyone,” she suggests, voice kind, offering an escape.

“Um. Yeah, okay.” He stutters, looking probably forlornly at Eliot. He can feel stupid thing his eyebrows are doing, but can’t really stop it.

“I’m not sure if I’m allowed to eat solid foods or not, but I would do all kinds of nasty things to a burrito, right now,” Eliot suggests, and Quentin snorts, feeling the corners of his mouth tug up despite himself. Eliot grins, half-cocked, and he’s still pale and shaky-looking but that expression is 100% Eliot. No Monster to be found. “We’ll talk later, Q, I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Better not,” he threatens, weakly, and allows himself to be lead away.

__

_In the dream, he doesn’t stop to watch Eliot wake up. He follows Penny and Alice into the mirror realm, stands on the precipice of the Seam and stares into the void. Magic flows through him in the tut for his mending spell, and every atom of his cells disintegrates._

_He can feel it. It’s pain unlike anything he’s ever known. It’s the first thing he’s_ felt _in weeks._

_In the dream, he starts to wonder if he_ is _dreaming, in the elevator down to the Underworld. But no, that’s just how the Underworld is. Then the doors slide open, and Penny’s there. The real Penny, or..._ their _Penny, or Penny-40. However you make that distinction when it’s the dead version of one of the two people who watched you die._

_Quentin stops wondering if it’s a dream, because it feels real. He feels real. Sometimes he doesn’t even feel real when he’s alive and awake, so this definitely means something’s changed. Right?_

_The conversation they have, ‘secrets taken to the grave, is like the weirdest therapy session Quentin’s ever experience. Not just because the therapist was his former roommate-turned-personal-antagonist-turned-fellow-quester; though that certainly added to the sense of unreality. No, it was just– Quentin’s had a lot of conversations with a lot of therapists about the possibility of being dead. Why he does or doesn’t want it at any given time, what to do to stop wanting it if he does. It’s really weird to have a conversation about being dead already._

_“Did I sacrifice myself to save the people I love,” Quentin wonders out loud, hands curled around the warm cup of hot chocolate. “Or did I finally find a way to kill myself?”_

_In the Underworld, or the afterlife, or whatever it is, the slide of time into the evening around the bonfire is less disconcerting than traveling ever was. He watches Kady and Julia and Alice and Penny sing, and expects to feel closure at their mourning. How many times has he sat alone in whatever far dark recess he could find and told himself that no one would even notice if he was gone? They notice. That should be reassuring._

_But it’s not. Since he was a child, he’s hated watching Julia cry, and seeing Alice look so helpless feels wrong on so many levels. Even Kady, who of the assembled crowd Q knew the least, it feels wrong to see her vulnerable like this. He wants to_ fix it _, mend this broken thing._

_Then a new voice joins the song, and Quentin looks up, and the Earth stops. Time breaks._

_He thought he’d felt pain when the mirror exploded._

_Now he can’t_ breathe _through the pain, watching Eliot in his widow’s blacks, barely able to fucking stand, leaning on Margo on one side and a cane on the other. A black cane with a silver ram’s head. Quentin_ knows _that cane. He spent about 10 years tripping over it in their tiny little cottage, constantly underfoot._

_Eliot looks–_

_Eliot looks worse than he had when possessed by The Monster. Maybe because The Monster’s only ever looked angry or bored, never this... broken and lost. He’s impeccably dressed and so_ Eliot _for it, but he looks, well. He looks like he’s drowning in grief._

_Quentin knows that feeling._

_Quentin’s buried a partner before. Twice before._

_Q starts crying, and good to know you could still cry in death, he supposes, except he doesn’t want to stand here watching, he wants to go to Eliot. Wants to climb into his lap and run his fingers through that soft hair, curls so much longer than they’ve ever been but still so familiar. Wants to cup his face and say “Baby, I’m here. I promised you I’d never put you through this, I remember that. I promised you the night before Teddy tied our hands in the orchard that you’d never have to watch me die young.”_

_What a stupid thing to promise someone._

_Then Eliot pulls out a peach, and it’s a hundred thousand moments overlaid in Quentin’s mind. It’s Arielle walking by the mosaic for the first time, and the 40th time and the last time. It’s the feeling of Eliot’s arms around him as they boiled peach jam, strong and solid and secure, the smell of peaches filling their whole home. It’s feeding baby Teddy peach mush, then cleaning peach mush off his silly baby face. It’s Eliot sitting in the throne room of Whitespire, peach juice running down his chin as their lives come flooding back. It’s “_ peaches and plums, motherfucker. I’m alive in here.” __

_Eliot throws the peach into the fire, and Quentin’s once-empty heart burns with it._

_“It’s time to say goodbye–” Penny says, in that weirdly clinical detached therapist voice, and Quentin can’t, he can’t, he can’t walk away from this, he can’t leave–_

_Eliot– he promised. Eliot–_  
__

Quentin jolts awake, heart hammering, cold sweat prickling his skin as he blinks into the darkness. Not the darkness of the Brakebills campus at night, lit by bonfire and magic. No, the darkness of the bottom floor bedroom in Kady’s penthouse.

Blinking, trying to shake off the lingering sense of dread from the dream, Quentin pushes himself up to sit. He’d fallen asleep on top of the covers on the left side of the bed ( _Eliot’s side,_ his memory supplies, _Eliot was on the right because it was closer to the door when they’d brought him in, but the left is his side_ ), still wearing his blue jeans. Squinting into the darkness of the room, he tries to drag back the details of the night before.

He’d claimed the space next El on the bed, resting next to him in the mountain of pillows, while Margo regaled them all with her stories of lizard-trips in the desert. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Didn’t intend to sleep before he got to talk to Eliot, but also couldn’t make himself ask for the time. Margo was so full of joy, and he thought maybe if he spent enough time around her, he might be able to soak up some of her giddy relief and make it his own.

It was never exactly a hardship to sit next to El and watch him interact with people. He had a talent for making Quentin’s introverted silence feel like part of the conversation, rather than an intrusion on it. Maybe he just assumed that everyone wanted Quentin around as much as he did, and the force of his charisma manifested it into being.

Glancing over now, Eliot seemed to be asleep, on his back in deference to his wounded stomach, but... whole. Healing. Alive and not possessed. 

The urge to smooth back his hair, to kiss his temple was so overpowering it made Quentin’s hands shake a little. But– Eliot had had a lot of things done to his body without his say-so, recently. Quentin couldn’t bring himself to add to the pile. 

Instead, he gets himself out of bed as gently as he can, which is admittedly not as smoothly as he would have liked. Still sleep groggy and trudging through the lingering effects of the dream, he stumbles out into the living room. There’s no movement or sound from anywhere else in the penthouse. He has no way of knowing who else might be here, since he literally passed out in the middle of the party, but if Margo and Josh or Penny or Julia had decided to stay the night, they too are lost to sleep. 

Grabbing a pack of cigarettes from the table, blindly and with no idea who they belong to, Quentin pushes the window out onto the balcony open. The cool chill from the night bites into his skin, but it’s welcome, because he can still feel the heat of that bonfire on his face even now. This little terrace was maybe never intended to be a functional living space, but it’s more than enough for him to crouch and sit on the smooth concrete, glancing up into the non-existent night sky of lower Manhattan. 

Working on muscle memory, he flips open the pack of cigarettes, glancing down to tap one out. They’re Parliaments, which means they’re Julia’s. He shouldn’t be surprised, since he hasn’t bought cigarettes in weeks, and it’s not like they’re in the habit of keeping Eliot’s ridiculous hipster brand around anymore. He brings one to his lips and snaps the end to life, breathing in the familiar taste of nicotine and ash. 

Looking out into the night, the sounds of New York City floating around him, it’s hard not to think about the dream. With the ground yawning up underneath, he feels poised on the edge of a knife. The precipice, the cavern of emptiness inside of him made manifest, stretched out into the world in the gap between buildings.

Sitting here, inhaling burning hot smoke, he remembers watching in the dream as Eliot tossed a peach into the flames. Remembers the twisted feeling, sickening in his gut, at the knowledge that he was _abandoning_ El to this, to the same grief and pain and loss he’d been fighting for months.

But he’d been fighting for _months_. Years. His whole life.

Was that the only way he’d ever truly get any rest?

“Q?”

The soft voice startles him, and he flinches back from the edge of the balcony, adrenaline surging in him. His very alive heart pumps in his chest, a staccato chorus: live _LIVE,_ live _LIVE,_ live _LIVE_. In the dream, he’d had no heartbeat.

His desperate heart pumps, pumps, pumps. Does it’s best to keep him alive as he watches Eliot gingerly hobble out onto the balcony. He’s using that cane, familiar black with the silver ram’s head, and it’s memory overlaid again in Quentin’s mind, watching Eliot hobble around using that cane to shift the weight off his bad knee. Where did he even get it and _why is he climbing through the window with it._

“Eliot, what– Stop! What are you doing? You’re going to fucking start. _Bleeding again_ ,” Quentin protests, trying to stand up and get Eliot back inside. 

“It’s fine, I’m out here already,” Eliot dismisses, and well. He’s not wrong. With a wince, Eliot slides down against one of the closed windows, leaning back against it heavily. But he’s settled, by the time Quentin gets over to him, and Q has no choice but to sigh and sit down next to him. He holds out his half smoked cigarette wordlessly, and Eliot takes it. 

When he inhales, the tip flairs to life, basking him in a warm glow, and he’s so. He’s so beautiful. Hazel eyes dance with city lights, regal nose and strong chin. Quentin’s never known how to handle Eliot, in all his _Eliotness,_ glory and gore wrapped into a bitchy comment. But he hands the cigarette back to Quentin, and exhales on a smile and it’s... gentle and tender. Because Eliot is that, too. 

_I missed you,_ he thinks, sudden, desperate. But that wasn’t Eliot’s fault, and he didn’t want to hear him apologize for it. Instead he says, ruefully, “I woke you up.”

Eliot shrugs, and winces at the movement. Quentin’s hands flutter out towards him before he can reign them in, hating that Eliot’s in pain and he can’t _fix it._ Eliot catches one, and squeezes it reassuringly, before letting go. “I felt you get up, but since I took an axe to the kidney within the last 24 hours, it took me a while to get out here, that’s all."

" _Jesus,_ El, you shouldn't be-" 

"I’m fine, Q. Lipson won’t even give me any of the good drugs, that’s how fine I am."

Chewing his lip, Quentin tries to think of an argument for this line of reasoning. He’s so distracting trying to figure out how to get Eliot back to bed that he misses the shrewd, assessing look being leveled at him until it’s too late. “Gonna tell me why you’re sitting on a balcony at 2am instead of staying in bed with me?” Eliot asks, and it’s light, like sharing sleep was a thing they just _did still._ Like there wasn’t a 5 month Monster Hiatus and a whole fucking break-up before that and fucking _death doing them part before that_ since the last time they’d shared a bed. 

“I wasn’t exactly in the bed,” Quentin says, and he sounds bitchy and he hates it. Fuck, he’s supposed to be done with lashing out at El when he’s like this, especially after– after everything. In his mind’s eye, he can see clear as day the image of Eliot in his dark suit, lit by fire light and fucking _broken_ by grief. His hands are fucking shaking as he stubs out the cigarette and fumbles for another from Julia’s pack.

“No, you’re right, the fact that you fell asleep before you could get your shoes off is definitely a good reason to be chain smoking on a Thursday night.”

“It’s Tuesday,” he bickers back, and this rhythm they have, it’s easy, it’s _so easy_ even after months and months of looking over his shoulder for the Monster. It should make him feel relieved, he should, he _should_ , but instead all he feels is an earthquake, shaking that void inside him. Fumbling, he brings the cigarette to his mouth, snaps it to life. Maybe he can fill the void with smoke, and then it will _stop shaking._

“Tuesday, my bad,” Eliot concedes, and when Quentin gets up the courage to look over at him, there’s a complicated look on his face, affection and concern and compassion all in one. His voice is soft when he says, “What’s going on, sweetheart?”

The nickname, one of many, has already been loosed into the world by Quentin himself, but it still so odd to hear it from Eliot, after everything. Despite it all, despite everything lost between them, it still makes Quentin relax a little. The solidity of Eliot, the security of him, affection that was only ever when it came to Q and all the more precious for it. 

Folding his knees up into his chest, Quentin wraps his arms around them, lit cigarette dangingly from his fingers. He watches the smoke twist up from the end of it, curl into the sky in random, beautiful patterns. “I had a dream,” he says, and then rests his chin on his knees to look over at Eliot.

“A bad dream,” Eliot guesses, and Quentin–

It’s probably a bad sign that he’s not even sure. “I died banishing the monster, in the dream. I watched you all. Mourn me, I guess.”

Eliot, to Quentin’s surprise, blanches white. “Sounds like a pretty fucking bad dream.” 

Quentin hums, looking back out into the chasm between the buildings. He shouldn’t be putting this on Eliot, not after everything he’s been through. Not while he’s literally still healing from the wound they needed to put in his body to save him from being trapped in his mind. The last thing he needed was–

“ _Q,_ ” Eliot’s voice slips through the cracks in his inner monologue, and he blinks, realizes he’s missed something.

“What?”

“I asked if I could touch you? I know, that the Monster– I didn’t want to scare you.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Quentin replies, and it’s automatic and it’s true. Maybe he’s a little jumpier in general, but everything about Eliot was so different than everything about the Monster. When Eliot shuffled forward gingerly until he could set his hand on Quetin’s shoulder, it was nothing like the Monster’s touch. Quentin leans into him, feeling Eliot’s strong palm rubbing his back. He _missed_ that feeling. He’d missed it for a long time.

“Tell me,” Eliot prompts, and it’s gentle, it’s soft, but it’s also familiar. Eliot had played the role of therapist enough in their lifetime together that he knew how to prompt. “Tell me about the dream.”

Quentin shrugs, helpless. “I was just. Dead. I was moving on. Penny, our first Penny, was there and he was... collecting my fucking secrets or whatever. He brought me to see you all so I could say goodbye, and I didn’t want to go, but–”

And here his voice breaks, tears he hadn’t even felt coming are spilling out of him. That chasm in his chest is filling, but it’s filling with water and he’s going to drown in it. It’s leaking out of him, from his eyes and his nose and his mouth and it’s truly disgusting, truly it is, but Eliot’s pulling him into his side, the span of his chest familiar and solid and safe, even as Quentin tries to be careful of the broken places. 

“But,” Eliot prompts, fingers sliding into Quentin’s hair and that makes him _shiver_. That’s a familiar touch, a lover’s touch, and maybe this isn’t them anymore, maybe Eliot’s just using it to soothe him and Q can hate him for that later but right now–

Right now it helps him draw breath. And another. And another.

“But. In the dream, I saw– You were all better off, because I was gone.”

“ _Quentin Coldwater_ ,” Eliot’s voice is hard when he pulls Quentin gently but firmly back from him by the scruff of the neck, until Quentin has no choice but to look up into his eyes, see the conviction there. “In no version of reality that has ever existed or ever will, have I been _better off without you._ ”

Quentin laughs, once, short and wet. “I didn’t want to leave,” He mutters wetly. Bring his sleeve up he tries to wipe at his face, wishing he was wearing a hoodie but for no other reason than that button-up shirts were absolute shit for crying into. Eliot, thoughtlessly, skims the sleeve of his henley down and brings it up to wipe at Quentin's cheeks. “I didn’t want to leave you, I’m just so tired. I want to rest.”

“I think we’ve both earned that,” Eliot says, and he’s got tears swimming in his own eyes, but he looks determined. “Listen to me. I’ve had a lot of time to think. When I was trapped in my mind, trying to get out to you, I had to find the thing I regretted most in life, the most painful memory I never wanted to look at because it hurt too much. And it was _saying no to you_ , baby. I clawed my way out of there because you looked at me after a lifetime together and asked me to do all again, and I would kill all the monsters in the world to have that chance.”

Quentin swallows, throat numb, face numb, stupid leaky eyes numb. “Oh,” he breathes out, watches Eliot swallow and press on.

“And if it’s too late for that, if I missed my shot, then I still want you in the world. I would stand by your side at your wedding and love your kids and I’d do _that part_ again too, because. You are the other half of my story, Quentin. If all I can have is your friendship, I will be grateful for it.”

“It’s not too late,” Quentin murmurs, and lets the butt of his unsmoked cigarette fall to the ground. “I’m– a fucking mess, but um. I never stopped, you know. Loving you.”

Eliot’s face does that complicated thing again, affection and elation and concern, and he reaches up to cup Q’s cheek. Quentin nuzzles into his hand a little, because he can. Because being touched with such gentleness after so long feels so good.

“I love you,” Eliot says firmly, and his eyes are burning with purpose. “And I know it’s not enough to fix this, because I know you’re _not okay right now_ , Q. Julia told me how things have been, but even if she hadn’t, I’d know. I’m here for you, and I will help you find your feet.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Quentin whispers, eyes dropping from Eliot’s earnest face. “You were bleeding out this morning, I can’t ask that of you.”

“Until my dying breath, I will always want to give you comfort and shelter if I can. It’s not a big ask, I promise.”

“ _Jesus, El_ ,” Quentin breathes out, and it might be a genuine prayer because, _fuck._ “Who says shit like that?”

“I told you, I had a lot of time to think,” Eliot replies on a laugh, hand drifting down to brush his thumb against Quentin’s cheekbone. “I just need to you stick around and help me, yeah?”

“I don’t want to leave,” Quentin admits, and his voice wobbles a bit, Jesus, will he ever stop crying? He drags in a deep breath, and it _hurts,_ like a cramp in his chest. But it’s the truth. “I don’t want to leave you. Any of you.”

“That’s enough, for now,” Eliot says quietly, tipping his forehead to rest against Quentin’s. The false quiet of the city stretches out around them, road noise and people and _life_ actively living, even at this time of night. A gust of wind swirls across the balcony, tugging Eliot’s curls and Quentin’s too-short hair, dissolving the last traces of smoke and nicotine on the air. Quentin shivers, a little, and Eliot pulls back. “Come back inside with me? It’s cold out here.”

“Yeah,” Quentin agrees, unfolding himself from his little ball of misery so he can help Eliot stand. 

It’s a slow process, but he’s still used to taking care with this. It’s amazing, the way growing old with someone taught you to be thoughtlessly patient with the limitations of their body. Even now, Quentin automatically moves to fit himself under Eliot’s left side, before remembering that the injury was on his right. Eliot catches it, gives him a little knowing smile, and opens his arm so Quentin can tuck into his side. He does so, marveling for the millionth time how perfectly he tucks under Eliot’s arm. They always fit together _so well._

Eliot’s a trooper about it, but by the time they get back into the bedroom, he’s gone pale and shaky again. Closing the door as quietly as he can, Quentin guides Eliot back to rest against it while he gets his strength back, both hands on Eliot’s hips, supporting him. It’s not until Eliot’s breath starts coming naturally again and his eyes open to meet Quentin’s, that Q realizes how close they’re standing.

But a slow smile breaks onto Eliot’s face, looking down at him like Quentin’s the best thing he’s ever seen, and that’s just. That’s just a lot to process. Instinct guides him up onto his toes, brushing their noses together, tilt his face up like he has hundreds of times before and hopes. Hopes. _Hopes._

Eliot’s hand slides around his neck, cupping the base of his skull, and Quentin’s shivering before Eliot even kisses him, but _oh, yes, please this._ The way Eliot kisses, purposeful and sweet, is familiar and new all at the same time. It’s been so long, _so long_ since Quentin even wanted this, even had the energy in him to want this, and now it’s like sparklers under his skin.

_Oh,_ fuck, but has he missed being kissed. It’s only his worry for Eliot’s pain that stops him for sliding his arms around Eliot’s torso and latching on. He’s so fucking _long,_ Jesus, Quentin wants to _climb him._ Instead, he just opens up for it, shivering, shivering right down to his toes as Eliot’s tongue fucks into him.

“El,” He breathes, breaking away, trying too. It’s so hard not just keep kissing him. But there’s a bed, literally _right there_ , “C’mon, just a few more feet okay.”

“Why are you still thinking?” Eliot grumbles, but he lets Quentin pull back. They cross the rest of the distance together, Quentin lending as much support as he can, as much as Eliot will let him. Then Eliot’s settling into the mountain of pillows, and Quentin’s climbing to straddle his lap like he’d wanted to in the dream, sinking his fingers into Eliot’s hair. It feels better than he imagined. It _feels real._

Eliot’s hands settle on the outside of his thighs, stroking nervously. “I’m not sure I have enough blood left to get hard. I left a lot of it on that forest floor,” Eliot jokes, and it’s not fucking funny, but it gives Q pause. 

“Okay,” he says, carefully, pulling away. Because right. Okay. _I love you_ doesn’t have to mean _I want to be with you_ , does it? Maybe he’d misunderstood the conversation they’d just had, maybe–

“Hey,” Eliot’s soft voice cuts through the building static in his brain, and Eliot’s hand is sliding into his. Long, clever magician’s fingers tangle with his. “That wasn’t– I wasn’t telling you to stop. That was a bad joke, I’m sorry. I–” Eliot pauses, and takes a deep breath, deep enough to make him wince at the tug on his wound. “I’m scared, and I’m trying to distance myself from it, and I’m sorry.”

Which is... Eliot has never been this honest. Even in memory, in Fillory of the past, they addressed Eliot’s fear by talking around it. Quentin remembers that. There’s a frankness to Eliot that’s _new._ What a wonderful thing, to have something new to learn about him.

“You don’t need to be scared,” he mutters, looking down at Eliot’s hand in his. He traces the vein on the back with his thumb, and remembers every time the Monster touched him with these hands. He can’t bring himself to be scared of them, though. “I’m just me.”

“Oh, Quentin. _You_ is the scariest thing you could be,” Eliot says, softly, but his voice is so... so fucking fond, so desperately affectionate. Quentin swallows, and the urge to curl in on himself hits, draw his legs up to his chest and duck his head behind his hair and hide. Except it’s _Eliot_ , and Quentin knows exactly what he’s trying to say.

And Eliot knows him too. Before he can even duck his head, El’s hand comes up, gentle fingers touching his cheek, tucking his hair back off his face. Quentin swallows, heartsore, because he _missed this_. He missed this so much, the tender and thoughtless way Eliot has always touched him. Fixed his hair, fixed his clothes, helped him pull himself together. He _missed_ this so much.

“I missed you,” he breathes out, and his voice _cracks_ , and fuck. He can’t cry again, not when he’s just barely pulled himself together. 

“I’m here now,” Eliot says gently, fingers scratching softly at the hair at the base of Q’s skull. Which isn’t _fair_ , that’s always made him melt. “And if you try to leave again, I’m just going to get up and follow you again, and then Bambi’s gonna yell at both of us.”

Which makes Quentin laugh, helpless, just a little. “She’s the scariest of them all.”

“It’s a well deserved reputation,” Eliot says haughtily, leaning back regally in his mound of pillows. _High king in your blood,_ Quentin thinks, fondly, longingly, and he feels...

He feels.

He _feels._

He feels sad and scared, mostly, but he also feels relief and affection and the bone-deep comfort of being known. He _feels,_ for the first time in a long time. And he knows... he knows that if therapy and medication and _literal magic_ were never enough to make the emptiness go away forever, then this won’t be either.

But he also knows, in one version of their lives, he and Eliot got really good at fighting that darkness together. 

“So, um– Can I kiss you?” he asks, because Eliot been joking before, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t some truth in it. “We don’t have to– It doesn’t have to go anywhere, or anything. I just want to be close to you?”

“I have an idea,” Eliot suggests, and his eyes are practically sparkling in the dim room. “Want to take a shower with me?”

Quentin, who’s begun the process of winding himself down from wanting sex, freezes a little. “Um. Isn’t that going to be more complicated than doing it here?”

“Maybe,” Eliot agrees, voice fond, giving Quentin an assessing look. Then he ruefully admits, “But I actually really want to shower. I feel like a Monster’s been living in my body for 6 months, and I’m probably going to need help. And I don’t think either of us is going to be able to handle being wet and naked in front of each other and not want to take advantage of it.”

“Oh,” Quentin says intelligently. He can feel his cheeks burning, but he can’t look away from Eliot’s wonderful hazel eyes. “Can I kiss you first?”

Eliot laughs, and it’s such a lovely sound, oh, it’s so Eliot. Will his _Eliotness_ ever stop being a marvel? “Please do. You can kiss me during, too, if you want.”

Quentin does.

The shower in the en-suite of this ridiculous room in this ridiculous penthouse is easily large enough to accommodate two people, even one as tall as Eliot. Getting him out of his clothes had taken the same care and patience as getting him into them had, only now Quentin can drop kisses onto his shoulders in apology when something tugs in the wrong way. Oh, how fucking good it feels, this _intimacy,_ loving someone like this.

Then they’re standing together under the gentle stream of warm water, Eliot holding onto Quentin for support as they kiss slow and dirty. It’s with a spark of excitement that Quentin realizes this is something new, something the other versions of them had _never done_. Fillory had many things but indoor plumbing was not one of them. 

It’s a revelation to touch Eliot’s skin in the warm spray of the water, feel the expand and contract of his ribs as he suckes in air. Months of numbness had left Quentin without any sex drive to speak of, and now it’s coming back, that hunger, wanting, _wanting Eliot._ Wanting so much, his strong sure hands and his slick hot mouth and his thick hard cock.

It’s so much, it bubbles up in him, a whine he can’t hold in, and Eliot laughs softly against his lips. He pulls back, stroking his hand through Quentin’s wet hair. “So needy,” he says fondly, and it makes Quentin’s legs go a little weak, which is just not fucking helpful because he’s supposed to be the one keeping them both upright. “What do you need, baby?”

“I need you to back up against the wall,” Quentin says, suddenly determined, because he knows what he wants and he knows how to take it. Eliot, smiling, does as he’s told, backing out of the spray of the shower head so most of his weight is resting against the wall of the shower.

Quentin goes up on his toes for one final kiss, and then drops to his knees.

Eliot swears, and that’s enough to make a small bubble of pride start to swell in the not-at-all-empty space in Quentin’s chest. Eliot’s cock is hard, lovely and long and curved up, and he apparently does have enough blood for this, which is a reassuring thought. Glancing up, he smiles at Eliot, watches Eliot’s whole face go soft. One of Eliot’s hands comes down to cup his cheek, thumb brushing against the corner of his smile. 

“Hold on to me,” Quentin whispers, just audible over the rushing water, and takes Eliot in his mouth. 

He doesn’t have the muscle memory for this the way he had in another life, but it’s fine. He doesn’t care. He’s happy to explore, to bask in stretch of it, how hot Eliot feels in his mouth, how thick. It’s all-consuming, and _Quentin likes it._ Oh, he’s always liked it, from that first half-forgotten fumble with Margo. 

He likes it even more when Eliot’s fingers wind into the wet strands of his hair, guiding him. It makes something unwind in him on some deep level, letting go, trusting himself to Eliot’s capable hands. Eliot’s other hand is braced on his shoulder, half using Quentin to hold himself up, but when Quentin glances up to look at him, he looks enraptured.

“You’re hard,” he whispers, and it’s true. Quentin is, his cock hanging heavy and full between his knees. “Touch yourself, baby, please.”

Everything goes a little effervescent once Quentin gets his hand on his cock. It’s been _so long_ since he even had the desire to jerk off, and now he feels exposed, stripped bare for Eliot. _Eliot._ He whines a little, and Eliot swears, fingers tightening in Quentin’s hair as he comes suddenly, unexpectedly. 

Quentin coughs, a little, but his whole body is alight with pleasure, he can’t make himself stop. Looking up at Eliot, at his beautiful face and intelligent eyes, so fucking dear. 

“El,” He chokes out, and comes too. 

His heart beats in his ears, his fingertips, his spent dick: live _LIVE,_ live _LIVE,_ live _LIVE._

Eliot’s fingers stroke his scalp, gentle, and Quentin staggers to his feet so he can help El off the wall, kiss him in the spray of the water and bask in the closeness. Carefully, he gives into the urge and winds his arms around Eliot’s torso, oh so gentle of the broken places. Like this, his head fits perfectly on the span of Eliot’s chest, forehead to his collarbones. 

“I really love you, Q,” Eliot whispers, just loud enough to be heard over the shower. “I’m so sorry you almost lost me before I got to say it.”

Quentin swallows, and his heart _hurts,_ but even that’s a welcome feeling. “I love you too,” he says, and it sounds like a promise.

It is.

He does actually help Eliot actually shower, and it’s that intimacy of care again, Jesus, he could drown in this. His soapy hands on Eliot’s skin, supporting him while Eliot washes his own hair. By the time they get out of the shower, Eliot’s skin is pleasantly pink and he’s smiling, but he’s also looking drained.

“Let’s get you back to bed,” Quentin murmurs, and can’t deny the appeal of sleeping for maybe 12 more hours.

Drying off takes a while, because they keep distracting each other with kisses, but they manage it. Then it’s just the process of making it to the other side of the room, and into the bed. The left side of the bed is closest now, and Quentin can’t help but feel a sense of rightness in the world as he helps Eliot into it, and climbs into his own side.

Under the covers, they curl together as much as they can with Eliot still on his back. That mostly means Quentin curling into his side, arm around his stomach. It feels right.

It _feels right,_ and Quentin has to hide from it, burying his hot face in Eliot’s arm. 

"What do we do now?" Eliot asks, soft in the quiet room. “I mean, The Monster’s gone. What’s next?”

"Honestly, I hadn't thought that far ahead," Quentin admits, and it’s true. He’d never bothered to think further than getting rid of the Monster, getting Eliot back. His whole focus of being had narrowed to that, and either he’d succeed or he’d die trying.

He’d succeeded, and he’d made a promise. 

“What were your plans for after grad school? Before all of this?”

Eliot’s fingers trace the edge of Quentin’s hairline, gentle and familiar, and Quentin’s newborn heart aches at the tenderness of it. Has anyone in his life ever touched him the way Eliot does? “I guess I figured I’d stay in school?” He muses, casting his mind back. Undergrad, and plans made during, feels like it belongs to a whole different life. A whole different person. “Maybe get a doctorate if I could find somewhere that would let me teach to pay for it.”

“Dr. Coldwater,” Eliot teases, bright eyed with laughter in his voice. “I love it. You can still do that.”

“I don’t think Yale offers doctorate degrees in Minor Mending,” he says dryly.

“I have some news for you, baby. People get degrees in multiple fields all the time,” Eliot points out, smirking when Quentin rolls his eyes at him.

“Sure.” Eliot’s smile, Jesus. _I missed you so much,_ Quentin thinks desperately, and scoots forward to push his head against Eliot’s shoulder. The shower had probably been a good idea, because he smells like body wash and laundry detergent and _Eliot._ None of the reek of sweat and ozone and blood of the Monster is left lingering on his skin. “So what, we just go back to grad school and fuck ‘em all?”

“It’s an option,” Eliot says lightly, and his broad palm cups the back of Q’s head, holding him close. Quentin could fucking melt into it.

“What did you plan to do, after Brakebills?” Quentin asks curiously, and it occurs to him that he’s never asked that before. Eliot had seemed so ephemerally connected to the school, when Quentin had first gotten there, like the Physical Kids Cottage simply couldn’t exist without Eliot in it, the Unofficial Prince of Brakebills. 

“This may come as a shock to you, but I wasn’t really in the habit of thinking beyond my next cocktail,” Eliot says lightly, rolling his head to the side to look up at the ceiling. Quentin wants to touch him, and realizes with a warm bubble of surprise that he _can._ Eliot’s chest is warm and solid under his hand, and Q can feel his heartbeat. 

“I kind of thought for a while there that I’d be a King forever,” Eliot muses, eyes flicking back to Quentin. “I wasn’t the _worst_ at it, but I was pretty thoroughly voted out.”

“I think you’re technically still married to the High King,” Quentin points out, watching with a flare of amusement as Eliot’s ‘ _oh shit, I have a wife_ ’ expression flashes across his face. It’s a laughably familiar look. “Though Margo said she mourned you, so maybe that’s like. The Fillorian version of an escape clause.”

“Can we pretend it is and just not ask anyone about it?” Eliot asks, a little sheepishly, and Quentin smiles. Nuzzles his face into Eliot’s chest, broad and strong and warm. _How did I live without this,_ he wonders. _How dare my subconscious think I’d choose to give it up?_

“And everything going on with the Library and in Fillory, we just... ignore that? Ignore that people are in danger?” Quentin muses, swallowing. He thinks of Jane Chatwin, of her bemusement at the fact that he just kept turning up. Was it in him to turn his back when people needed help? No, he thinks, he can’t walk away from something broken if there’s any chance he can mend it. “Because I’m not sure I can do that, El.”

There’s a couple beats, and then he feels Eliot’s lips press to the top of his head in a soft kiss. “I know that. I know you. I just had a lot of time to think, and... I'm not sure there's anything wrong with a quiet life.”

A little cabin in the woods, your partner by your side, your son in your arms... Quentin swallows, and tilts his head up to meet Eliot’s eyes. “You think that's why it worked, before? Because it was small?”

“I think it worked because it was us,” Eliot says, with that frankness and honesty that’s still so new. It’s going to take some getting used to. Quentin’s really looking forward to learning everything new there is to learn about Eliot. “I think it'll work for us as long as we both want it to.”

“I want it to,” Q says, and he doesn’t feel empty at all. He feels full of hope, and possibility. 

Eliot smiles, that warm Eliot smile the Monster never managed to replicate. 

“Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found as portraitofemmy on most places, notable [twitter](https://twitter.com/portraitofemmy) and [tumblr](https://portraitofemmy.tumblr.com/).


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